Chip bowls are frequently used to hold a variety of snack food items, such as potato chips, tortilla chips, pretzels, crackers, snack mixes, and similar items. Likewise, dip bowls are frequently used to hold accompanying dips or toppings, such as salsas, cheese dips, vegetable dips, meat dips, and similar items. Chip bowls and dip bowls and other similar service items are commonly associated with social gatherings and celebrations. For example, they are often featured at swimming pool parties, graduation parties, family game nights, and any other type of celebration or gathering. Hosts of such events frequently place chip bowls, dip bowls, and other service items on tabletops so that guests may casually serve themselves.
However, tabletop space is limited. As a result, tabletops often become overcrowded during these festive events. The aforementioned chip bowls, dip bowls, and other service items may interfere with other objects on the table, such as beverages, tabletop games (board games and card games), and other food vessels. Moreover, the particular placement of the chip bowls and dip bowls is often inconvenient and may require guests to reach across the tabletop or walk around the table in order to access one of the bowls. These and other problems associated with conventional chip bowls and dip bowls can cause frustration, annoyance, and dissatisfaction among guests. The limits on tabletop space are even more pronounced in the outdoor patio furniture setting, as the existing limits on deck or patio space tend to force these tables to be smaller in size. Therefore, outdoor patio tables and other furniture often does not suffice to hold all the bowls, service items, and other things that are desired to be placed on a table in a social gathering or other similar settings.
Attempts to address some of these concerns have included the development of a “Lazy Susan” or serving tray for a table that rests upon the tabletop and allows for rotation of elements supported on the serving tray. However, this conventional type of serving tray includes a base which is configured to rest upon the tabletop and therefore continues to take up valuable space and interfere with other items on the tabletop. In this regard, although the need to pass elements around a table may be reduced with such serving tray designs, the problems with space on a tabletop in environments like family game nights or parties continue to persist.
Therefore, a need exists for a serving tray that addresses these and other concerns with conventional designs of tables and serving trays.